Val Donnan’s Blog

“Today’s imagination is tomorrow’s knowledge” - Nimai C. Suna

This quote has pressed an image on my thoughts this week. How true it is that the children we live and work with everyday are truly the knowledge of the future. We have a great responsibility to increase their own current knowledge based on the knowledge that we have received from our life experiences, but also to support their imagination. Supporting one’s imagination can seem like an impossible task at times with federal and state mandates, assessments and learning standards, curriculum guides and time lines, but the truth lies within the quote. If we chose to teach in the same manner that we were taught, we are limiting the imagination of a whole generation. As parents and educators, we need to stretch ourselves and nurture our own imagination. I have challenged myself to take a few extra moments with my own children and students to allow them to create a visual to go along with the story that they are telling me; time to build a model to go with the current unit of study; and the time to experiment with a true expression of themselves building their self confidence using programs on a computer that I have yet to experience.

The great inventors and scientists were not successful the first time they attempted to “light a light-bulb.” It took imagination, risk taking and self preservation to continue to explore the possibilities. Without imagination, risk taking and self preservation our knowledge for the future will truly be limited. I challenge you to let your own and your children’s imagination flow.